La Teleferica Massaua-Asmara

In 1969 or so I found La Teleferica Massaua-Asmara and photographed it in the Biblioteca Italiana in Asmara, Eritrea (then Ethiopia). This series of pages reproduces the pages of this slick brochure.

Three of us co-translated the text in September, 2000. Dave Engstrom did the major part of the translation. Renato Guadino followed up with several clarifications. And I joined the translation to the test here and in the process added some of my quirks resulting from working with several informal translations of the text off and on for the past 30 years.

Use the menu on the top and bottom of the four page groups to page through the brochure.

The Massawa-Asmara Cableway

Cheretti and Tanfani S. A. Milan

[Label of the Italian Library in Asmara]

The Massawa-Asmara Cableway

Origins

ASMARA - the charming Eritrean capital, situated almost on the edge of the highlands, dominates the slope that descends first quickly and then gently to the searing beaches of the Red Sea - was qualified by its natural location to become one day one of the principal collection points for commercial traffic arriving by sea and headed for the heart of the Empire. In fact, the picturesque little city lies at an altitude little different from those of the two great routes that radiate towards the distant centers of Adua, Axum and Gondar, on the one hand, and Makale, Dessie and Addis Abeba on the other.

But for many years this natural advantage could not be exploited. It was too high above sea level (about 2400 m.) to be easily linked to heavy commercial traffic. The little, narrow-gauge railroad begun in 1911 was able to make the great leap, thanks to a series of dizzying serpentine curves up the slopes. But the problem could not be considered solved, the railway's potential being too limited in view of the ever-growing traffic.

This was the origin of the Massawa-Asmara cableway, the great engineering work of our time, that won the approval of

Panoramic view of the two great spans toward Mt. Codemas.

technicians and the admiration of the world. It has in one leap more than doubled the commercial traffic between the sea and the interior, and, in conjunction with the railroad, accounts for almost the entire traffic.

Construction of the gigantic work was awarded by His Excellency, the Chief of Government, to our Company - CERETTI & TANFANI, S.A. - which is proud of its long history of glowing successes throughout the world, and most particularly in the this competitive field of engineering in the service of industry.

A splendid view of the line in the area of Mt. Codemas.

The supplier of the cables was S.A. GIUSEPPE & FRATELLO REDAELLI of Milan; of the engines, S.A. FRANCO TOSI of Legnano.

Cableways and Great Distances

Population centers at markedly different altitudes and separated from one another by vast desert or forest lands see in the cableway the ideal solution to the problem of reciprocal trade links. It [a cableway] brilliantly surpasses